Many computer users interact with multiple applications in determining how to schedule their time. For example, a user who wants to schedule a meeting with a colleague might request data from both a groupware service provider to determine a time during which both parties are available and an enterprise resource management server to determine whether conference rooms or necessary equipment are available. As the user requires information from multiple sources, the process by which he or she gathers that information becomes more unwieldy. Suppose a user wanted to set up a business meeting to discuss details of an impending product launch with a representative from his or her company's marketing department, engineering department, legal department, and manufacturing department, one or more of whom are located at different sites. The user would have to check at least (1) the availability of all the participants, (2) multiple milestones related to the product launch such as the dates of trade shows and shipping dates, (3) critical dates for important customers, and (4) collaboration services available at each site during potential meeting times.
In general, computer users may receive information related to time from many different source applications. These source applications include enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, customer resource management (CRM) applications, supplier relationship management (SRM) applications, corporate Intranets, corporate workflow applications, business-to-business (B2B) commerce applications, the Internet, or Groupware applications (such as Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Domino), among other applications. As a result, users may be required to learn a number of different interfaces and monitor information from each source application separately.